Olympus C8080 WZ digital camera resource

This online resource is under construction.
If you have new information please send me an email
or leave a message using the form below.
If you have very specific questions about the Olympus 8080, I'd suggest
that you put them in the

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I can't have my eyes everywhere and if you are aware of any information
specific to the Olympus 8080 which isn't yet available here, or if
you'd like to leave your own user report, you can send it to me here.
Just leave
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you'd like me to reply to you):

Reviews

Sep. 14th: See the interesting
page of Gary Ayton with technical data about the 8080, information
about lens converters, external flashes, focusing issues, exposure,
batteries and memory cards. Also see Gary's resolution
test of the 8080.

July 30th: see this interesting review
of the Olympus 8080 by Photography BLOG. It's not on the level of
Imaging Resource, Steve's Digicams and the other major sites,
but it interesting to read.

there are no visible chromatic aberrations and noise is low
at ISO 50.

The image at ISO 400 seems usable.

The amount of detail in the images is good, despite the low
noise level. It appears that the noise reduction Olympus uses doesn't
flatten the detail.

The outdoor photos taken with auto WB have a blue cast.

Mar. 16th: Jeff Keller posted Olympus
8080 sample images on his DCResource site. Noise and chromatic
aberrations are low, but all images show some blueish cast and some are
overexposed (the church one for instance). A polariser flter would have
probably helped on that sunny day and the best results would have been
achieved if the images had been shot in RAW.

Lens
resolution

To compare the resolution of the 8080 lens with the one of the
Olympus E300 I used the following test (images supplied as RAW by Moshe
Ronen; test target developed by Jens Birch):

The test pattern consists of sets of five squares with
horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. Each square (1..5) has lines a
different spatial resolutions, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest
resolution.

In the test I check in which squares the lines are still visible
individually (beyond the resolution limit the lines start to merge).

Camera

Lens used

Focal length
(35mm equiv)

Aperture

Resolution

Comment

vert.

hori.

diag.

E300

Macro
50mm

100mm

F4

3

2-3

3

E300

14-45
kit lens

90mm

F8

3

3

3

E300

14-45
kit lens

46mm

F8

3

3

3

E300

40-150
kit lens

162mm

F8

3

2

2-3

E300

40-150
kit lens

300mm

F8

3

2

3

8080

28mm

F4

3

2-3

3

Test target only covers approx.
80% of the image

8080

54mm

F4

3

3

3

8080

140mm

F5,6

3

3

3-4

As you can see the 8080 beats both kit lenses of the E300 (14-45
and 40-150). If it is true that the 14-54 E300 lens does not have more
resolution than the 14-45 lens, it means that the lens of the 8080 also
beats the 14-54 "pro" Zuiko lens.

Mar. 10th: Jeff Keller posted an interesting comparison
between the Nikon 8700, the Canon Pro 1 and the Olympus 8080.
Again the images of the 8080 have the lowest levels of chromatic
aberration and noise.

White
balance settings

ISO test: ISO 50
vs. ISO 200

Two images, both shot in RAW, both handheld at 1/20s and F2.4.
One underexposed at ISO 50, the other properly exposed at ISO 200. The
(originally dark), underexposed ISO 50 image has been heavily
brightened up in post-processing to make it as bright as the ISO 200
one.

Both images were converted from RAW to JPEG with the same noise
reduction settings.

In theory both images should have the same noise levels. However
surprisingly the underexposed ISO 50 one is considerably less noisy
than the ISO 200 one.

By the way, the above shots are both 100% crops.

RAW file format

The 8080 generates 11.4 MB RAW files.

To convert 8080 RAW files to JPEG either use the Camedia software
which came with the camera or the much better Adobe Photoshop
converter. Version 2.2 now supports the Olympus 8080 RAW file format.
The plugin, which will work with Photoshop 8 (CS), can be downloaded
from Adobe's
site.

Give a try to Silkypix's
Developer Studio RAW converter.
Not free, but it is getting very good feedback from those who are using
it. It seems to be THE raw converter with virtually any control you can
imagine. Some feedback from Jerry Beggs:

"I have tried the Silkypics raw
converter - it is the best I've found and importantly, it runs on old
pc's; I use Windows ME on a PIII 800 processor with 256mb RAM. It
works perfectly and is fast enough. Many of the new RAW
convertors
like Pixmantecs Rawshooter Essentials and Phase One's Capture will not
run on less than 500mb RAM and Windows XP. "

Another Free program that can view RAW is Picasa2 available from www.picasa.com

Another RAW converter is Phase One's Capture One LE which allows
saving
the file as a 16-bit TIF. This allows saving the full range and tuning
a high contrast image in CS preserving detail at both ends of the image.

It appears that the 8080 writes
with a maximum of 0.9 MByte/s
(sustained) to CF cards.

There is no advantage in using CF
cards faster than 30x (actually
the camera is write-limited to 6x, but we didn't test the write speed
with slow CF cards).

The maximum write speed to xD cards
is 0.8 MByte/s (sustained) .
Since xD cards are more expensive than CF cards, the only reason to use
xD cards is if you want to use the 8080's inbuilt panorama function.

These write speeds are painfully
low. The Olympus 5050 for
instance is capable of writing at 2.5MByte/s (sustained) to fast CF
cards and manages to write a RAW image to CF in about 3 seconds. The
8080 needs at least 12 seconds to write a RAW image to a memory card.

The 8080 takes xD and CF memory cards, even in sizes
larger
than
2GB because the camera supports FAT32.

The write speed of xD cards in the 8080 is disappointing - 13
seconds to write a RAW file to an xD card.

Which memory card to use with the
Olympus 8080 ?

Generally speaking CF (CompactFlash) cards are cheaper than xD
cards. Fast CF cards are also faster than xD cards in the Olympus 8080,
so the only reason to use xD cards is if you want to use the camera's
panorama function (note however that you can shoot panos by setting the
camera into manual mode and locking the white balance, or setting the
camera into manual mode and shooting RAW).

So, unless you want to use the Olympus 8080 panorama function,
the question becomes: which CF card to use ?

Well, the 8080 limits the read/write speed to 0.9 MByte/s -
that corresponds to a 6x speed (1x is 150 KByte/s).

This means that even a cheap 12x CF card is perfectly adequate
and very fast CF cards are not necessary, as the camera is the limiting
factor. In other words, if you buy an expensive 65x CF card for usage
with the 8080 you are wasting your money.

Firmware

The latest firmware available for the Olympus 8080 is v757-78
(note: to get this firmware send your camera to Olympus). Here is an
overview of the changes between firmware versions:

757-74 to 757-75
The update corrects the following errors:
1. Turn PW-ON and as Auto-PW-Off after leaving it for four hrs., dark
current becomes 3mA (Cause of battery drain )
2. Wrong focal distance (in 35mm film equiv.) is recorded in the EXIF
data.

757-75 to 757-76
The update corrects the following errors:
1. The stray light is exposed when it exposes for 40 seconds with BULB,
NOISE REDUCTION OFF and ISO400.

757-76 to 757-77
The update corrects the following errors:
1. When the external flash is used, the flash charging indicator is not
on after the flash firing.
2. Using the card which has block failure may cause a camera hang-up.
3. Pixel Mapping does not function well.
4. When the camera is used in SDK mode, the Camera Control cannot be
used.

757-77 to 757-78
The update corrects the following errors:
1. When the lens of camera with FL-50 is set to wide side, zoom values
below 35mm are not displayed.
2. The minimum aperture of RAW data is not correctly indicated in any
application software.

July 27th, 2004: Olympus released a firmware update for the
Olympus 8080. The firmware can be downloaded here.

The firmware update fixes these two bugs:

By taking certain type of route
in
camera operation, malfunction of AF or the camera not accepting any
button operation occurs.

In Exif Viewer, CAMEDIA
Master and OLYMPUS Studio software, information of the focal length
(Exif-information) in 35mm photography appears to be incorrect.

but doesn't add new features or better performance (no buffered
write yet for RAW images for instance).

This firmware update (July 27th, 2004) is only needed for
cameras
with firmware v757-74 or older.

Autofocus methods

See this
page by Gary Ayton, which explains the different autofocus methods
for digital cameras and gives tips on how to get the camera to focus
properly.

Noise test: the
Olympus 8080 vs the Olympus 5050

Note: for this test I compared the
noise levels in the RAW images
of both cameras. The final JPEG image of
the 8080 will probably be less noisy due to the more sophisticated
noise reduction firmware of the 8080.

It appears that the CCD of the 8080
is a bit more noisy than that of the 5050.

More specifically at ISO 64 the 5050
has the same noise level as the
8080 at ISO 50. At ISO 100 the 5050 has the noise level of the 8080 at
ISO 80 (actually a bit lower than that), at ISO 200 the 5050 has the
same noise level as the 8080 at ISO 125 and at ISO 400 the 5050 has the
same noise level as the 8080 at ISO 250.

What does this mean ? Well, if you
shoot
only JPEG or TIFF you might ignore the results, because the 8080
applies more advanced noise reduction than the 5050, although some
detail gets lost as a result of this.

If you however shoot primarily RAW, it
basically means that you have to
use the 8080 at lower ISOs and therefore the 8080 is less sensitive to
light than the 5050. Since the 5050 also has a more bright lens, it is
much more suitable for low light handheld photography than the 8080 -
in a specific situation the 5050 will need only half the exposure time
of the 8080 (or even less, depending on zoom levels).

Chromatic
aberrations / Purple fringing

To remove chromatic aberrations you can process the RAW image
with the Adobe Photohop RAW plugin.

To remove chromatic aberrations with
an image editor (desaturation of the magentas):

It is very simple to remove chromatic
aberrations from an image. Simply use a photo editor and set the
saturation
level of magenta (also green where this makes sense) to the minimum. In
some images you might have to set the saturation level of red to the
minimum.
It might also make sense to limit the processing to the affected area
(i.e.
select the affected image area and only process that).

Polariser
filter and other filters

A polariser filter helps to obtain deep
blue skies and to remove unwanted reflections. Consider the following
example
(both images taken with the polariser filter):

Perhentian island image

Same image with polariser rotated
by 90 degrees

See the difference ? In the picture
to the right, the polariser filter substantially reduced the amount of
light reflected by the water surface making the sea ground more visible
and made the sky more dark.

Polariser filters are also useful when
the lower part of the image is dark and the top (the sky) too bright.

Have a look at Darwin
Wigget's page on filters for further information on polariser,
blue-yellow polariser, graduated neutral density and other filters

Accessories

Raynox now offers an adapter tube, the RT5267CT,
which screws directly onto the body of the 8080, and which can be used
to connect auxiliary lenses. Some photos and a description are
available here.
Not sure if you can also connect a filter.

Soligor will offer a 62mm
adapter tube (Article Nr. 57955) to which auxiliary lenses can be
attached. Not sure if you can also connect a filter.

The Power Battery Holder B-HLD30 can hold one or two BLM-1
batteries and has a portrait grip, a shutter release button (with lock)
and a zoom control lever. The B-HLD30 holder can store an additional xD
memory card. In addition to powering the 8080, the B-HLD30 provides a
more secure grip when using heavy auxiliary lenses and external
flashes.

BLM-1 battery and cheaper 3rd party alternatives

See this
page
which contains an overview of currently available BLM-1 battery clones:
Olympus BLM-1 (original), PS-BLM1 (7DayShop.com), WT-BLM1
(SterlingTek.com), Energizer OM-1, Hahnel HL-M1, UNiROSS VB104295,
WinTop PS-BLM1 and e-Film (Delkin) BLM1. The author rates the batteries
according to construction, capacity, (low voltage) protection and cost.
It appears that not all 3rd party alternatives are created equal.

Nov 11, 04: Test added which shows which
capacity the original Olympus BLM-1 battery and cheap 3rd party
alternatives have. With the batteries I had (one original and two 3rd
party ones) I measured the following:

Original Olympus battery: 1299 mAh

3rd party battery 1: 1077
mAh

3rd party battery 2: 744
mAh

This is OK, since
the Olympus original BLM-1 battery costs 17 times more than the 3rd party
alternatives I bought.

The original BLM-1 battery from Olympus is very expensive,
selling at prices of 70 Euro upwards (a Dutch user even reported that
the BLM-1 costs 119 Euro in the Netherlands) - a multiple of what a
NiMH battery set costs. Since February 2004 cheap 3rd party
alternatives to the BLM-1 battery are available from a number of
sources (mainly sellers on ebay - do a search for "BLM-1" on ebay).

The questions then are

how good these cheaper alternatives are and

whether they can they be used without problems in the Olympus
8080.

The original BLM-1 battery from Olympus is rated at 7.2 Volt and
1500 mAh. The alternatives have voltages of 7.2 or 7.4 Volt and
capacities of 1300 or 1500 mAh.

The voltage difference is no problem:

The 7.2 Volt which Olympus officially quotes varies in reality
between 6.7 Volt (discharged battery) and 7.7 Volt (fully charged
battery). These are voltages measured under a pretty heavy load of over
1 Ampere (battery loaded with a 6.8 Ohm resistor).

With no load the measured voltages become 7.37 Volt in a
discharged state (emtpy battery screen showing) and 8.2 Volt (battery
fully charged).
=> In other words, it's highly
irrelevant if the battery is rated at 7.2 or 7.4 Volt - the camera can
withstand 7.7 Volts without problems.

The capacity difference is also something not to worry about.
There is no big difference between 1500 and 1300 mAh (we are talking of
a 10% difference), but the 3rd party battery costs a fraction of the
original one.

Personally I bought two 3rd party BLM-1 batteries in August 2004
from a Hong Kong eBay seller.

Price per battery was US $ 5.49 and the total cost including
shipping was US $17.

The batteries arrived in 10 days to my home in Germany.

I tested one of these cheap "counterfeit" batteries. It lasted
for over 600 shots (SHQ, all with the LCD on, about 10% with flash) and
still had juice left when I got tired and interrupted the test. It just
wouldn't die.

My results are the Oly charger took around 5 hours to get to a
full charge and the Vidpro about half that (which is what they
advertise). BUT, it could be the second battery I charged on the Vidpro
didn't need that much charging - what I did wasn't under very
controlled conditions re residual charge before recharging.

The Vidpro (US $30) charger base is a little larger than the
Oly, and also has an AC to DC module (a little smaller than the Oly
unit itself) that plugs into the AC wall socket whereas the Oly unit
accepts AC directly with the supplied AC cord. Both the Oly &
Vidpro accept 100v-240v, but the big difference I like is that the
Vidpro has a 12v DC (vehicle, etc.) adapter allowing the batteries to
be charged in the field.

Infrared
photography with the Olympus 8080

by Antara Scales

Sunny day, f2.4, 2sec, ISO50,
hoya r72, tripod.

Photoshoped (levels, curves, channel mixer, usm, cropped to get rid of
vignette at wide angle. I'm using a 49mm filter from the UZi). It took
a bit of work.

The Olympus 8080 is not too sensitive to infrared radiation (see
the above image which required a 2 seconds exposure at F2.4).

Auxiliary
lenses

Jason Jones reported this:Merkury Optics .45x AF high
definition digital lens with macro, bought off of eBay as a package
with camera. Vignetting at widest angle, I can supply a test photo as
an example. It screws on to the filter threads, probably not good for
the camera.

DCR-2020PRO 2.2X High Definition
telephoto Conversion Lens: this teleconverter extends the
telephoto range to 300mm (35mm equivalent). Only problem is that you
need to stop down the lens to F5.6, otherwise you get vignetting. Also,
Raynox states that the lens resolves 260 lines/mm at MTF 30% in the
centre - that means that the effective resolution goes down to 4MP (for
8MP you need a lens capable of resolving 370 lines/mm, i.e. 185 line
pairs/mm). Requires the RT5267CT
adapter tube (52-67mm).

I’ve
the 8080 since a couple of days now and the wcon08b probably can’t be
used without vignetting. When I hold the wcon08b against the 8080 lens
you have no vignetting. But the 8080 lens extends a couple of mm (I
think about 4mm) more when powered up/down than the wide position so
the adapter ckcpower is making can’t place the wcon08b completely
against the 8080 lens… I’m sure you’ll have dark corners/vignetting
with such adapter… I know now why the wcon08d is 80 g heavier… it has
to be bigger at the inner diameter, especially because I heard you can
zoom in a little bit (probably the space the lens needs to extend at
power up…).

The use of the tcon14b looks
possible but I think it’s not very esthetical when it’s mounted on an
adapter because the inner diameter of the lens is less than the adapter
thread… The weight difference of the tcon14b and d is still strange…

The WCON-08D 0.8x wide-angle converter lens reduces the focal
length by a factor of 0.8, giving you a 35mm equivalent focal length of
22.5mm at wide angle.

TCON-14D

The TCON-14D 1.4x teleconverter lens, increases the focal
length
by a factor of 1.4x, giving you a 35mm equivalent of 196mm at the tele
end.

The telephoto conversion lens TCON-14D ($240) and the
wide-angle
conversion lens WCON-08D ($220) require both a lens adapter tube ($45)
in order to be used.

This was posted by Wim Pollet:

Tom from http://www.ckcpower.com
is making an adapter for the C8080wz with a
standard lens thread instead of the special bayonet.

That means you can use
the E10/E20 tcon and wcon lenses instead of the new versions specially
made for the 8080. That means also that you can use filters in between
the adapter and the lens OR in front of the lens (but that's much more
expensive because of the large diameter).

Tom doesn't know what thread the adapter wil be (I hope 62mm like the
E10/E20), he will know that next week he says and he will have the
adapter within 3 weeks from now...

People who are considering buying the Oly bayonet adapter... take note
of this... It's better to use threaded lenses instead of bayonet lenses
specially made for one type of camera...

The weight difference is a bit strange, the wcon is heavier in 8080
version and the tcon is heavier in the E10/E20 version... somebody
knows more about the differences? I'm curious how the quality compairs
between both...

Some interesting links:

Michael
Meissner's page on wide angle lenses for the Olympus C-2100UZ
camera
contains an overview of wide angle lenses with different thread sizes
(43
- 62 mm). Although I can't confirm it, these lenses should also be
usable
with the Olympus 4040 with an appropriate adapter.

External
flash

Here is how to shut of the pre-flash on my FL50 (reporteyd by
Brian from Denmark):

Go into the flash menu, set the
flash to slave.

All camera settings are still sent
to the flash, but the flash is naturally using its own sensor instead
of TTL.

then no one is in time, to
even think about closing their eyes, before foto is taken.

Normaly i'm also locking the
settings in camera to:
Zoom = Full wide = 28mm
Focus = Manuel = 2m
Aperture:
3,6 = In focus from 1,0- ~m
4,0 = In focus from 0,9- ~m
5,0 = In focus from 0,8- ~m
5,6 = In focus from 0,7- ~m
-depending on how close the object is from camera..
-So with flash and camera settings set to above, you got a really fast
snap-shot-tool :)

12.04.04: somebody reported that he is using his Canon Speedlite
155A (which has a trigger voltage of 6.5V) on the hotshoe of his C-8080
with no apparent issues.

See Michael Meissner's excellent page
on Olympus
External
Flash Support. It contains an overview of external flash units
which
can be used with the 8080 (as well as with other Olympus digital
cameras).

Akond.net are developing a
software for camera control. It's not free, but you might give it a try.

Travelling
and storage

June 17th, 2006: Wim Pollet reported the following:

I
made contact with the Vosonic support center to ask why the xdrive
supports only the dslr series RAW files and not the Olympus C series. I
have the VP6210 model and can only see the raw thumbnails which are
pixelated/blocky and can't zoom in to check focus for instance.They
asked me to send an .ORF raw file from my C8080wz, after some days they
reported the Xdrive will support the decoding of the RAW file from
firmware version 1.2.5 which is going to be released this month (June).I
believe the Multimedia series VP6230/VP6210/VP6300/VP6310/VP8350/VP8360
all use the same firmware, they all have 1.2.4 right now...http://www.vosonic.com/index.php?PA=supportMaybe
it's interesting to put on your C8080wz resource page when the firmware
is released later this month...

August 2003: I just bought a Vosonic
X's Drive 2. Without HD (I had one already) the price was below 100
Euro. This thing comes with a fast USB2 interface and will read
Smartmedia,
CF I and II, Memory sticks and SD/MMC cards. As far as I know this
external
storage device is currently the lowest cost device available. Quality
and
performance are good.

EZ
DigiMagic: burns CDs directly from the memory card (but how do you
know that the burning process was successful? ...)

When travelling I use a Toshiba subnotebook
(P1 133MHz with 64 MB RAM) to store, catalog and process the
images.
There are also portable storage devices, but the advantage of the
subnotebook
is that all image processing (i.e. deleting bad ones, sorting them
etc.)
can be done while travelling. That's especially relevant on long trips.
The disadvantage is that a subnotebook is bulkier and heavier than a
portable
storage device.

Underwater
Photography

Nov. 16th, 2006: see the photos of Jan Messersmith
on Flickr: "All underwater
pictures were taken with the PT-023 housing and the normal camera
flash. I've heard complaints that the inbuilt flash was
useless. I think these pictures show that this is not true.
You just have to know the limitations and learn to work with them."

April 27th, 2004: Olympus announced
a delay in the availability of the PT-023 underwater housing
and the PPO-05 housing (see below). The housing, which should have been
available from the beginning of April, has now been postponed due to
the late availability of parts.

Olympus has released the PT-023
underwater housing for the Olympus C-8080 digital camera. They have
also released the PPO-05 underwater housing for the WCON-08D wide angle
converter lens (same page).

The site Digideep.com
is an online directory for digital underwater photography.

Exif
Image Viewer, by Michal Kowalski. This is the one I'm using.
Quoting
from his homepage:

"EXIF viewer is a simple image
viewer application for photos taken with digital cameras. It's capable
of reading EXIF information embedded in photos as well as little
thumbnail.
Because small thumbnail is already present in most photos displaying it
is really fast.EXIF viewer can also provide
detailed information about photos (shutter speed, aperture, etc.) and
conveniently
list them for comparison purposes.EXIF viewer also displays image
histogram. It also features copying/moving and deleting of selected
photos.
Single photograph can be displayed in separate window or in a full
screen
mode."

Exifer,
by Friedemann Schmidt. I'm using this one too. It can rewrite EXIF data
to images which lost it due to processing with a software package which
doesn't support EXIF. Quoting from his site:

"Exifer is a nearly free software
(you only should send me a postcard if you're using Exifer frequently)
with which you can manage the metadata (EXIF/IPTC) of pictures taken by
digital cameras. Because many image processing software destroys this
metadata
when saving such files, the idea was to create a backup of the metadata
before editing it in any software, and then, after that to restore it
back
into the processed file. With Exifer you can do this very easily. "

Panorama
shots

Giuseppe calculated the position of the nodal point and built a
QTVR panorama head for the 8080. The nodal point is situated 56 mm in
front of the tripod mount (23mm to the left and 38mm up). See the
corresponding diagram
and Giuseppe's
page.

Here is some feedback from Stephane Brouard:
"I just contacted Giuseppe. The 56mm on his drawing are 50 mm on my
camera. 56mm is exactly at the end of the removable ring, not at the
beginning of it (from the screw hole).As I checked again before
sending this mail I found out that the 23mm is wrong alsoI don't think the specs of the
camera changed."

Rob
Galbraith's site has an article on Alex Majoli ("Alex Majoli points
and shoots"), an award winning photojournalist who uses Olympus point
and shoot cameras, the c-5050, -5060, and -8080. Interesting
reading.

FAQs

What follows is a list of FAQs (frequently asked questions) compiled by
Jens Birch, based on questions asked in the Olympus 8080
users group.

Q: Can I use a linear polarizer with my camera?
A: Yes. You can use either linear or circular polarizers. Circular ones
are needed for most autofocus SLR cameras (not the Olympus E-10 and
E-20 though).

Q: How can I avoid the annoying beeping sound when turning ON by
mistake?
A: Turn mode dial to GREEN ARROW...it works every time! You can also
use a sufficiently long lens tube (does not work for the 8080 without
vignetting).

Q: How can I obtain exposure times longer than 1/2 second or shorter
than 1/1000 second?
A: With the 8080, exposure times longer than 1/2s are available A, S
and M modes. 1/4000 second is available in all modes. Bulb is only
available in M mode.

Q:How can I speed up the time it takes for the camera to take the
picture after I press the shutter button?
A: There are many things you can do:

You can be prepared beforehand by 1/2-pressing the shutter button
(and keeping it 1/2-pressed) while aiming at the subject before the
actual moment when you want to take the picture. The autofocus (AF) and
the aperture will be set and the camera will then take the picture with
no time lag when you press the last 1/2-way.

Set the camera to manual focus (MF) at the subject distance you
intend to take the picture at. This is most easily done by aiming at an
object at the distance you want to use and 1/2-pressing the shutter
button. While keeping it 1/2-pressed, press the AF/Macro/MF button.
That fixes the focus at the desired distance and the camera is set to
MF. This will significantly reduce the shutter lag.

Set the camera to manual exposure (M) which further reduces the
shutter lag.

When it is tricky to catch the moment, use Hi-drive sequential
shooting and start taking pictures just before you think the action
starts. Use the optical viewfinder in order to follow the action when
the camera's LCD is occupied while taking the pictures.

Turn off the "REC-view in the "SETUP" tab in the "Mode Menu".
That will minimize the time that the just taken picture is displayed
and you will be ready for the next shot as soon as possible.

Use fully charged batteries if you are using the on-board flash.
Otherwise it takes a long time to re-charge.

Q: How can I stop the camera from entering sleep mode after 3 minutes?
A: Plug in an external DC power unit or a battery pack. You can also
excercise the zoom a little now and then with the remote control.

Q: How do I copy between cards in the camera?
A: Change the Camera to Playback Mode, press OK, press right, go to the
Edit menu, press right, go to the Copy button, press right, select
"All" if you want to copy all otherwise go to "Select" to copy single
pictures. Press OK when you want to copy.

Q: How do I switch between the xD and the CF cards when transferring
the images from the camera?
A: The camera uses the card that was selected when it was connected to
the USB port. To switch card, you must 1) prepare your computer to
safely disconnect the USB drive (camera). 2) pull the USB cable from
the camera, 3) press once at the CF/xD button to select the other card,
4) reconnect the camera.

Q: How do I tell what firmware version I have?
A: One way of doing it is to open a picture in a text editor such as
Notepad, and search for the string "v757". The number of the firmware
version follows right after that; for example, v757-75 means you have
version 75. A second method is, when viewing an unedited image in
Windows XP, right click on on the image, then click on properties, then
metadata, and it should be listed. A third method is to run the
firmware update utility but do not update and it will tell your your
firmware version in the camera.

Q: How do I use a polarizing filter to best effect?
A: The LCD normally compensates for the brightness of the scene which
makes the effect hard to see. To see the effect on the LCD you must
circumvent that compensation by locking the automatic exposure
temporarily. You can do that in two ways, either by pressing the AEL
button once or by keeping the shutter button 1/2-pressed. Now, while
the exposure is locked, rotate the filter and observe the effect on the
LCD screen, when you are satisfied with the effect you must press AEL
again or release the 1/2 half pressed shutter button in order to
re-activate the exposure meter (to get a correctly exposed picture). If
your polarizing filter feature a little knob or a white dot, you can
get maximal effect without looking at the LCD by rotating the filter
until the knob/dot points towards the direction where the sun is on the
sky (as good as you can). This is useful in sunny days when viewing the
LCD is difficult.

Q: How high flash trigger voltage is the C8080 capable of handling?
A: Several independent Olympus' tech staff stated that they will
survive 300 V trigger voltage. (See e.g., posts #9105, #19780, and
#30782 in the Olympus
8080 users group.) However, one Olympus techie recommended to stay
below 10 Volts (post #31361) and another said that "the voltage could
not be concealed to the public". We have not had any high trigger
voltage damages reported so far (July 2004). Note: a minimum of 6 Volts
trigger voltage is also recommended by one Olympus representative.

Q: How to RESET my camera?
A: A "soft" reset to factory default shooting settings, but without
changing date and file-numbering, is done either by simultaneously
pressing the "self-timer" and "custom" buttons or by setting the "All
Reset" to ON in SETUP in MODE MENU and then restarting the camera.
There is also a "hard" reset which basically restarts the "firmware"
(the program that runs the camera) and wipes out the on-board memory.
NOTE: This reset is intended for technicians to use. This is done by:
putting the camera in M mode, opening the memory door, turning the
camera on and then hold the "OK" and "Quickview" buttons
simultaneaously for 3 seconds. Select "Reset" in the menu that appears
and press "OK" . For the C8080 it is done by opening the storage door
and pressing "OK" and "Monitor" buttons simultaneously. A similar reset
is obtained by leaving the batteries out of the camera for a long time
(12-24 hours).

Q: My camera gives out-of-focus images. What is wrong and how can I
avoid it?
A: The camera is by default set iESP focussing which automatically
selects what is most important to focus on. Often, the camera decides
that a contrast-rich background is more important than the subject. Set
the camera to "Spot-autofocus" by pressing the "OK"-button while
holding down the "AF/macro/MF"- button and select "spot" with the
selection wheel. That will make the camera to focus in the center of
the scene. Another possibility is that you set the camera manually
according to the distance gauge which isn't accurate at all.

Q: What is a lens tube?
A: A lens tube is the tube you attach to the camera body at the base of
the lens; add-on lenses and filters can be attached onto the other end
of the tube. On the C8080, a 67 mm male tread on the body is available
for a lens tube. The Olympus tube is the CLA-8 which features a bayonet
coupling for Olympus original conversion lenses in the end. To access
the treads on the body, a factory mounted ring that occupies the
threads has to be removed. Note that filters of size 58 mm can be
screwed directly onto the lens barrel. Alternatively, you can get third
party lens tubes from Raynox, Soligor or Tiffen with standard filter
threads that accepts filters as well as third party auxillary lenses.
More info is compiled in the document: 'Lens armour_adapter tubes.doc'
in the 'Files' section of the Olympus 8080
users group.

Q: What memory card is the fastest for my camera?
A: Generally a fast (faster than 12x) and large (256 Mbyte or larger)
card of a good brand (like Lexar, Sandisk Ultra, Transcend, and Ridata)
is recommended. At about 7x the camera electronics becomes the
bottleneck for the Olympus 8080. Please see the Olympus
8080 write speed survey.

Q: When is it beneficial to use a polarizing filter on my camera?
A: If a polarizing filter is rotated to the correct angle, it will
reduce light reflections from wet surfaces, asphalt, glass etc. or
darken the blue sky but leaving the white clouds essentially bright.
You also use it to reduce haze and glare in misty or polluted air
conditions. You can use it all the time but it will steal about 1-2
f-stops of light and it will not have any noticeable effect in other
situations than the above mentioned.